The Long Walk Home

“Lord are You still coming?
This world is all in shame
Everything is broken
But You remain

Have mercy on me, Jesus
I can’t take one more step
The lights go out all around me

I want to see Your face
I want to hear Your voice
I want to lay my burden down
I want to run to You
Forever dance with You
I long for night to end
Lord let Your day begin”

(Tree63- Let your day begin. Yes please…)

“Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms…That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age…

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

(Barak Obama, inauguration speech, a day in which even the most hardened of cynics feel the touch of hope. We live in interesting times.)

“If in our lives there is no sexual union with another, perhaps because we have accepted celibacy, or gone through bereavement, illness or divorce, we are no less fully human and fully sexual. Deeply satisfying human intimacy, whether in marriage or outside, is in the end not dependant on copulation but on a faithful sharing of our hearts and lives with those whom we love, and a longing for their well being and peace. For it is then that ‘God can be God and love be gift.”

(Elaine Storkey- The Search for Intimacy)

“Holy friendship truly is of God, that amidst the wretchedness of this exile, we be comforted with the counsel of friends until we come to him.”

(James Housten- The transforming friendship)

The ridge we walked on from Cocking to Brighton. We ended up on the seafront watching the sunset and starlings swooping around the pier in pretty formations.

Cheese ruled the day hence:

“Looks like we made it
Look how far we’ve come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we’d get there someday

They said, “I bet they’ll never make it”
But just look at us holding on
We’re still together still going strong”

(Shania Twain.)